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What We Cook When We Miss Home
The first time I cooked chicken er jhol (Bengali chicken curry) alone in my new apartment, in a new town in a new country, it arrived at the table ferociously spicy and unapologetically watery - choices made deliberately, if not wisely. As a lifelong advocate for more jhol (broth) with everything, I wanted heat, chicken and soupiness with the right amount of rice in every bite. Perhaps it was a reactive correction to the food I had encountered so far in Seattle, which - through my own unfamiliarity with the ‘right’ orders back then - had felt oddly muted or bland. I wasn’t trying to cook ‘well’. I was cooking in defense of comfort.
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Everyone Wants to Be a Ghibli Character. So, Why Does It Feel So Wrong?
There’s a peculiar kind of magic in watching Studio Ghibli films. The kind that doesn’t just entertain — it lingers. It coats your soul like the afternoon light in My Neighbor Totoro, or the silent resilience of Princess Mononoke. It makes you want to touch grass, sip tea slowly, notice the wind, and wonder why we ever stopped paying attention to these things in the first place.